Reader: ‘Macaroni Grill committed fraud on my tip’

Update 1/20/11:Read the statement from the restaurant’s corporate office, here.

If you didn’t read today’s ARA you won’t understand this post. So, if you want to be in the loop, check this out first.

I have had a lengthy correspondence with the reader and also spoke with the guest relations department, at the corporate level, where this all happened.

This post is going to be set up like previous customer service-type posts. Since we haven’t had these in awhile, let me refresh your memory. First, you will hear from the reader; then you will hear from the business. In this case, the restaurant. Finally, I will weigh-in with my thoughts.

I have edited the reader’s story down, and the conversation with the restaurant, for length and clarity. All the information you see in their sections is as it was told to me. All names were confirmed by the reader, and by the woman in guest relations.

The reader says:

It was the Macaroni Grill in Colonie.

I spoke to several people. I first spoke to Traci who is a manager there. She was investigating what happened. I then spoke to her manager Sonya who was rude and told me I signed for the $30 and there was nothing she could do. I kept pressing the issue so she said she could send me the $10 in gift cards, but other than that she couldn’t do anything.

She kept insisting that, because my signature was on the slip, I authorized that amount. She asked if I had my customer copy. I explained I had the main receipt and my credit card statement and that I was looking for my copy. This was proving difficult since I had surgery on my foot a week prior. She said that, without it, she could not help and stressed that she need to see the amount on that slip. I explained that wasn’t a carbon so how would it matter? She insisted it would, and said I had no proof I was even in their restaurant. She wanted to call my credit card company. I declined, because I was not giving a stranger access to my credit card account. I did offer to conference her in, if it came to that.

Eventually I found my copy in my coat pocket, but she said that was not enough. I told her that was unacceptable and that I never authorized $30, only $20. I told her I wanted the $10 credited back to me. When I questioned the slip, she told me that there were no changes on the slip. I requested a copy of it be mailed to my house.

After continuing to argue with her over the amount, she agreed to refund the $10. She told me she was “over the conversation” and “sick of listening to me.” She told me to talk to Traci again, who would take my credit card info and process the refund.

I found it unacceptable that I was treated like a criminal in this matter when I was the victim, so I called corporate. I spoke to Lisa. She assured me she would make sure the credit would go through and send me a letter along with gift cards for the inconvenience.

Yesterday made it almost a week and I still had not received a copy of the slip. I called corporate to find out where it was. (I was done being treated rudely by the local restaurant). Lisa told me she would look into it and get back to me. She called me back and emailed me the slip. On the slip, you can clearly see the amounts were altered. (See the slip here.)

When I questioned how this could happened I got the response of “customers change their mind about the tip amount all the time.” I asked how they could keep defending a waitress who committed fraud and she said she didn’t know what I wanted her to say. And she felt I wouldn’t be happy until I knew the waitress was terminated.

I requested (Lisa’s) supervisor and she denied me, stating he does not speak with customers. I decided to call corporate back and speak to the operator. I asked for her supervisor and left him a message.

I got home and received a letter from Lisa which was her personal apology. In it she indicated she had resolved everything with the district manager, Jack and he would not be calling me like I had previously requested. (I wanted someone local, not in Texas, to handle the issue since Corporate didn’t seem to want to do much.) The letter also stated that she was no longer going to send gift cards like she had promised since they had decided to refund the entire $30 not the $10.

I was furious they had broke another promise and I eventually called back. This time I had the operator locate him.

Eric (Lisa’s supervisor) assured me he would get to the bottom of this and was sorry it had escalated this far. I told him I was very close to filing a police report for forgery because they are doing nothing to help me.

I still have no received credit to my account or much from them. I think other consumers need to be aware of this.

I don’t think I should have ever had to fight and continue fighting to get my money back. It isn’t about the amount its the fact that someone stole money from me.

Lisa Gillett, in the Macaroni Grill guest relations says:

There are some accuracies and some inaccuracies in the reader’s story.

When I talked to her I said I would send Be Our Guest gift certificates, but I said because the restaurant credited the entire balance — an amount that was greater than the BOG certificates that were going to send — that I would no longer be sending the certificates. She agreed.

I was planning to send $20 in BOG certificates and I was going to credit her the $10.

She and I also agreed that it wasn’t necessary for Jack (the area manager) to call her.

She was accurate in saying that she hadn’t received the receipt. When we spoke, she was abusive to me — swearing and using abusive language. She also spoke to the restaurant manager in that manner.

I did ask Jack (the area manager) to follow-up and we told her it had been submitted for processing, and she all but hung-up on me on the phone. I said to her “(Reader), I don’t understand what additional things you want to happen.”

After basically hanging up on me, she repeatedly called back.

When she wasn’t able to get me, she went to the operator and asked for Eric. Eric did speak to her and reviewed the amount.

At the time with her initial conversation with the restaurant, they did not have the receipt in front of them to explain why there would be a 100-plus percent tip on a bill. They needed additional time to research it.

I think where this went completely unrecoverable, from (the reader’s) perspective, was that she did feel the restaurant was defending the server, but really they just didn’t have the information.

I said to her “the only way you are going to be happy is if the server and Sonya no longer work there.” She agreed.

We manage our own business. We don’t let our guests dictate who is an employee and who is not an employee. In the spirit of the moment perhaps the manager did defend the server inappropriately, but she (Sonya) didn’t have all the information.

The restaurant did mail a copy. And they credited the credit card last Wednesday.

When I (Kristi) asked Lisa if they suggested the reader was the one to alter the receipt (at this point I had it in front of me and could clearly see it was altered), Lisa told me she told the reader: “I wear reading glasses and I have been known to not put my glasses on, write something and then realize I did not write the right amount, cross it out and change it.”

I wasn’t saying she had done that, I was just saying it can happen.

I do know she spoke to Eric yesterday and Eric did agree to get back to her and that was the last I had heard of it. I don’t have any updates from Eric. I would like to be able to check with him, but I suspect he will offer her the BOG certificates.

If that’s what she wanted, we could’ve agreed on that. We want to make it right.

My thoughts:

First, I have to say that it’s somewhat refreshing that the reader’s story and the story from corporate are fairly similar.It seems that the problem came within a communication break-down.

As I said earlier today, I know first-hand waitstaff has been known to alter receipts. Is that what happened here? I do not know. What I can say, though, based on that photo, is that the receipt was absolutely altered — by someone. Also, it makes no sense that someone would leave a 100 percent-plus tip on a bill, especially at a mid-priced chain restaurant in upstate New York. Not to mention, her original tip was pretty generous — nearly 33 percent of the total.

If this had been handled by the very first person the reader spoke with, she probably would not have gotten so angry with Macaroni Grill and with the corporation to the point she used “abusive language.”. Ten dollars is not a significant amount, and it’s not about the money, as the reader said. This comes down to the issue at hand — and having to go through a lengthy chain of command to get a resolution on something that, regardless of whose mistake, was clearly an error.

If I were the reader, I wouldn’t want the BOG certificates, at this point, because I wouldn’t want to go back to a place that caused me so much frustration.

I, too, would want the server to be reprimanded, and fired (if she did, in fact, alter the receipt), but I understand that’s a personal matter and none of our business.